Keeping technocracy out of CTE
One of my concerns about today’s strong and growing focus on career and technical education is that it could fuel some school-reformers’ bent for central planning.
Social reformers of all types (and over the generations) tend toward technocracy. They identify an important problem and then seek to solve the problem through swift, large-scale government action — typically via the highest level of government they can capture and populate with “experts.” This, of course, assumes that the problem is technical in nature and can be solved by those with a particular expertise.
It seems like today’s labor-force/employment/skills-gap problems lend themselves to technocratic thinking: There are jobs open and people out of work, so let’s just figure out what skills are needed, educate people accordingly, and then labor demand will meet labor supply. This could lead people to think that we simply need knowledgeable government administrators to deduce the jobs of the future and devise suitable skills-development systems through expansive government programs. The solution would be Taylorism-meets-training, a Five-Year Plan for jobs.
But I think our jobs-and-employment problems are far from technical challenges. I think they have roots in a tangle of social, cultural, economic, and personal issues. So the answer won’t come from adjusting Variable X to get result Y. My view is that the more complex, deep-seated, and “human” a problem, the more danger we invite by addressing it as a technical matter. Empowering central “experts” — especially those using public policy as the lever — risks oversimplifying the issue; identifying the wrong goals and causes; and crafting one-size-fits-all, inflexible remedies.
I think this challenge instead offers an opportunity to trust communities and markets. Since the needs of employers, individuals, towns, and cities are many and varied, we should aim for policies that enable those involved to make decisions and course corrections. That is, we don’t need a Washington-generated prediction of how many coders, welders, and construction workers are needed or how to educate potential hires or match them with openings. We need to enable the nation’s countless actors to use their wisdom and experience to figure this out.
America’s communities are famous for their problem-solving ingenuity — whether catalogued by Tocqueville in the 1800s or Fallows 200 years later. And we have some good signs this approach is going to be relied upon when it comes to our employment/skills/education challenges. The House’s Perkins Act reauthorization bill aims to return power to the states. States have been testing an array of new CTE policies in recent years, and they are further experimenting with CTE approaches via their new accountability systems under ESSA.
But we also must recognize that “decentralize” is but a partial answer. Once Uncle Sam and other technocrats stand down, employers, educators, and workers could use a hand up. One of my favorite resources along these lines is the 2014 report “Bridge the Gap” by Accenture, Burning Glass, and Harvard Business School. It focuses on “middle skill” jobs, those requiring more than a high school diploma but less than a BA. These jobs are available but employers find them hard to fill because of skills gaps; but, interestingly, few employers are investing in skill-building for potential employees.
It explains, with terrific data, the enormous variation among such jobs. It also counters some conventional wisdom. For instance, some of these jobs are much more plentiful than we might believe (e.g. in technical sales and sales management). Some offer greater satisfaction and opportunities for career advancement (e.g. nursing assistant). But some jobs that get lots of publicity, including a number in manufacturing, could actually become victims of automation and/or off-shoring; others, like pharmacy technician, don’t offer much opportunity for promotion. The report also underscores a recurring theme in this field: Many HR executives lament the lack of work ethic and other soft skills among prospective employees.
A terrific recent Catherine Gewertz article for Education Week describes how these issues are playing out on the ground. Recognizing that old CTE offerings don’t reflect today’s and tomorrow’s needs, educators and state policymakers are working to modernize and expand offerings. But — at least in the most aggressive states — new courses of study must demonstrate that they meet specific labor-market needs and prepare students for post-secondary education.
If the goal of high school is to prepare students for four-year colleges, those students need foundational skills and knowledge — a set of competencies that won’t change that much from year to year.
A clear lesson is that our increased focus on CTE makes new demands on today’s education systems. If the goal of high school is to prepare students for four-year colleges, those students need foundational skills and knowledge — a set of competencies that won’t change that much from year to year. But if high schools are being asked to produce skilled workers able to land and succeed in today’s fast-changing economy, our schools need to be nimbler and have more varied and specific offerings than ever before.
That means central administrators, especially those in the federal government, need to understand their jobs as creating policy environments that enable locals to succeed — not dictating how success is defined or how it’s to be achieved.
First published at https://www.aei.org/publication/keeping-technocracy-out-of-cte/.
